Skip to main content

The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro: book review





The Muralist (2015) is about the disappearance of Alizee Benoit in New York City in 1940, and seventy-five years later in 2015 when her great-niece, Danielle Abrams, tries to solve the mystery.

On the eve of the Second World War, 22-year-old American mural painter Alizee Benoit, is working for the Works Progress Administration (WPA). When the president’s wife, and arts patron, Eleanor Roosevelt, visits the WPA, Alizee spontaneously begins a bold conversation about the need for ‘innovative’ and ‘forceful’ abstract murals. This conversation gains some interest from the First Lady.

Soon after the conversation, Alizee disappears. Not even her Jewish family living in German-occupied France, knows where she is. Not even her artist friends, Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Lee Krasner, knows where she is.

Alizee’s great-niece Danielle Abrams unearths the works of the famous Abstract Expressionist artists 70 years after her great aunt went missing. But did the artists or their works hold the answers to her aunt’s disappearance? There were rumours that Alizee was Rothko’s lover, and that Pollock was jealous. Was her Jewish heritage and pre-war politics part of the answer. Was she arrested as a suspected political agitator? Or was she bipolar and suicidal, or an amnesiac who got lost?

In addition to being a novel of mystery, mixing fictional characters with real-life people, it also outlines the historical beginnings of the American school of Abstract Expressionism. It explores whether art is political and whether politics defines art.

It is an interesting beginning – the entanglement of art and war-time propaganda – but it was not quite gripping enough for me. If a reader is interested in the art scene of the times, the abstract artists were not well developed, focusing predominantly on three now-famous names, without full knowledge of the many American and European artists experimenting in the genre at the time that were also influential and influenced. For readers of mysteries, it is light but rises in parts. For those seeking Franco-American linkages, there is some of that. In combination, the novel is a reasonable read.


MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2016 update on Rike Park, Tbilisi: from construction to busy park

From a flat patch of uninteresting dirt, Rike Park in Tbilisi, Georgia, has transformed in four years (from 2014-2016) into a busy park full of trees, flower beds, sculptures, fountains, and events. Rike (Rikhe) Park is on the left bank of the Mt’k’vari River (the Kura River) near the Old City of Tbilisi. The Peace Bridge links the right bank to Rike Park. Rike Park is below the hillside Presidential Palace and, via cable car, it is the starting point for the ride to Sololaki Ridge (with the Narikala Fortress and the Mother of Georgia statue). The glass box-shaped cable car terminus was opened on 23 June 2012, and since then the park has continually developed into a ‘people’s park’ where people can walk around, eat at the nearby restaurants, sit next to the statue of American president Ronald Reagan, climb the steps to Avlabari district, and access the sights of Meidan Square, the Peace Bridge, the Metekhi Church, the Old City, the waterfall, the sulphur baths, and t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...
1 comment
Read more

Hop on hop off bus tourism comes to Tbilisi, Georgia

City Sightseeing buses have arrived in Tbilisi. The iconic red double-decker buses, a feature of many cities around the world since the company was established in Seville, Spain in 1999, is now in six continents and almost 100 cities. The company established its Tbilisi business in November 2013, with its operations commencing in February 2014. The 90-minute tour stops at 11 major locations in Tbilisi (with 2 to 5 minute waiting times at each location): the Old City (where it commences), Freedom Square, Rose Revolution Square, Marjanishvili Square, the Dry Bridge, Konka, Avlabari, Metekhi, Akhundov Museum, the Sulfur Baths, and European Square. Passengers can hop off at any stop and see the sights, hopping back onto the next bus at any time. Alternatively, passengers can remain on the bus for the whole tour and take photographs when the bus stops at each location. There are one day (24-hour) passes (for 35 lari – about $20) and 48-hour passes for 55 lari, with family d...
2 comments
Read more